The mission of Clarity Child Guidance Center is to help children, adolescents, and families overcome the disabling effects of mental illness and improve their ability to function successfully at home, at school, and in the community. It is the only non-profit in South Texas providing a continuum of mental healthcare, including serious mental disorders, to children ages 3 to 17.

We know all too well, many of us first hand, the mental health crisis affecting our country. One in 5 children will be affected by mental illness, which translates to nearly 100,000 kids in Bexar county alone, and more than 60% of those children will not receive the care they need. Unfortunately, there is a national shortage of mental health clinicians in the country, and the average wait time to see a child psychologist is greater than 3 months. This leaves us asking, how can we change the direction of this current situation?

It is for reasons such as these that the Junior League of San Antonio has decided to partner with Clarity Child Guidance Center on our Centennial Project. For this Project, the experts and physicians from Clarity will help our members develop a training program to help us teach and inform the community, both through our other community partnerships and beyond, about how children and families can maintain mental health and support mental wellness. As a way to deepen the impact of this project, we will be funding a grant to help renovate a building on Clarity's campus into the Junior League of San Antonio Education Center, which will provide a space to help Clarity Child Guidance Center train the next generation of caregivers and to help those currently in the profession stay current on all the latest research and topics to better care for their patients.

It is our hope that the Junior League of San Antonio can pave a new path towards children's mental wellness so that future generations of children can benefit from the trails we blaze through our Centennial Project.